Director, Human Resources Business Partner, Enablement Functions

Job Description

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The Director, Human Resources Business Partner for the Enablement Functions in Sun Life Canada will be responsible for implementing people and talent initiatives providing consulting expertise and influencing key initiatives and organizational changes. This role is not your average HRBP opportunity; rather this role will be a strategic partner to the business by being both an HR expert and delivering a future-focused Talent agenda. This role offers an exciting opportunity to deliver end-to-end talent outcomes to the business while directly aligning to their specific needs and objectives.

At its core, this role has two main objectives – build relationships and deliver a differentiated Talent experience. As an HR business partner, you will build trust with business leaders to develop and maintain a thorough understanding of the business strategies to inform a talent agenda focused on driving business success and strategy execution. This includes delivering an exceptional employee and manager experience while delivering HR cycles and practices. You will influence the business to develop a future-focused talent agenda. Delivering against this agenda will support outcomes that include evolving the function’s operating model, expanding the talent ecosystem, and nurturing its culture to drive a high performance, empowered organization. Reporting to the AVP, HR Business Partner, Canadian Operations, this role is a trusted and valued partner in a complex and dynamic portfolio.

What will you do:

• Partner, advise, coach and influence leaders to recognize, diagnose, and problem solve on talent situations and challenges.
• Elevate team effectiveness to deliver on their mandates.
• Create and execute change management plans to socialize and embed HR initiatives, policies and procedures for employees and managers.
• Coach managers to sustain change.
• Be a SME and a trusted advisor for client groups on talent policies, cycles, and initiatives.
• Design future-focused talent initiatives in support of the business strategy for implementation where applicable across your portfolio.
• Lead and manage organizational change and talent programs and initiatives within this function.
• Identify and validate talent gaps and recommend talent solutions leveraging data analysis and demonstrating ROIs.
• Lead and manage the annual talent cycles (Performance, Talent Review, Compensation, etc.) for your client groups.
• Deliver, refine, and maintain a robust succession plan.
• Partner with Centers of Expertise (Employee Relations, Talent Acquisition, Total Rewards, Global Talent etc.) to design, refine, and implement talent initiatives for the Enterprise functions.

What do you need to succeed:

This role is seeking something different…someone who is digitally savvy, relationship-driven and future-focused. A storyteller who can engage executive stakeholders, while also understanding the needs of the front-line employee, and is obsessed with delivering a differentiated experience to everyone.

In addition, our BOLDER leadership framework highlights the behaviours that lead to success at Sun Life:

• Biased for action – embraces a ‘fail safe’ mindset by quickly learning from mistakes so teams can succeed sooner.
• Open to listen – open to new ideas and perspectives.
• Learn all the time – is curious and intentionally carves out time to learn and reflect.
• Drive outcomes and results – measures progress against outcomes and enables speed from ideas to implementation, grounded in facts derived from data analysis and insights.
• Empower – enables and supports leaders, employees, and team members as they determine “how” to achieve outcomes.
• Resiliency – knows when to push, when to pivot, and when to let go.

Skills & Competencies:

• Undergraduate degree and/or a combination of 10+ years of relevant, progressive work experience
• Strong business and HR acumen, with analytical and systems thinking to develop practical solutions, improve employee outcomes and balance complex programs with daily priorities.
• Collaborative and action-oriented, with the ability to coach, influence and constructively challenge leaders, adapt communication styles and deliver through ambiguity.
• Digital fluency and curiosity, with an understanding of how emerging technologies shape workforce capabilities, talent strategies and the employee experience.
• Experience supporting digital or technology-enabled transformation—including workforce readiness, reskilling and adoption—would be an asset, as would experience in project management, agile methodology and change management.

As this position is posted in several locations, we specify that bilingualism (French, English, both oral and written) is required for Quebec only for the frequent interactions with English and French-speaking colleagues or internal partners across Canada or worldwide.